Saint Monica

Monica was born in North Africa, at Tagaste, around the year 330. ¹² She was married to Patricius, a pagan official of the town, described by the Catholic Encyclopedia as a man of violent temper and dissolute habits. ¹ It was not a happy marriage, and Franciscan Media does not soften it either. ²

She did not argue him into the faith. She outlasted him in it. Patricius was baptized shortly before his death - Franciscan Media puts the baptism a year before he died in 371. ¹² The Catholic Encyclopedia records that his conversion was a consolation to her for what she was about to suffer through her son. ¹

Their eldest son, Augustine, was gifted and idle. At Carthage he fell into serious sin and became a Manichean, adopting a heresy his mother regarded as a catastrophe. ¹ She grieved over him for years.

When Augustine decided to leave Africa, he did not tell her - he sailed for Rome secretly, having deceived her about his plans. She followed. By the time she reached Rome he had already moved on to Milan, so she followed him there too. ¹ There is nothing passive in Monica's patience; she crossed the Mediterranean after a grown man who did not want to be found.

Franciscan Media describes the whole campaign in one line: "Her long years of prayer, coupled with a strong, well-disciplined character, finally led to the conversion of her hot-tempered husband, her cantankerous mother-in-law and her brilliant but wayward son." ²

At some point in those years a bishop, worn down by her weeping over Augustine, gave her the sentence that has been quoted ever since: "the child of those tears shall never perish." ¹ It is the most famous thing anyone ever said to her, and it was said to stop her crying.

In Milan she found Saint Ambrose, and through his preaching Augustine finally gave way, after seventeen years of resistance. ¹ He was baptized at Easter in 387. ²

With her son baptized, Monica told him that she had nothing left to keep her in this world - the one thing she had wanted had been given. ² She fell ill at Ostia, the port outside Rome, while they waited to sail home to Africa, and died there in 387, aged about fifty-four. ¹² She had been praying for that outcome for most of her adult life and outlived its arrival by a matter of months.

Saint Monica is the patron saint of mothers, wives, conversion, and alcoholics. ² The first two come straight from her life. The third is why most people come to her at all: she is the saint you ask when the person you love has left the faith.

The feast of Saint Monica is celebrated on August 27, the day before her son's. ² The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia records her feast on May 4, the observance in place when it was written. ¹ Mother and son now keep consecutive days, which is not an accident.

Seventeen years, and for most of them nothing changed. ¹ That is the fact to hold onto if you are praying for somebody who has walked off. A prayer that has gone unanswered for a decade is not the same as a prayer that has been refused.

Her patience was not passive. She followed Augustine to Rome after he lied to her about his plans, and then on to Milan when he had already moved. ¹ She crossed the Mediterranean twice after a grown man who did not want to be found.

A bishop, worn out by her weeping, told her the child of those tears would never perish. ¹ It is the most famous thing anyone said to her and he said it partly to get her to stop crying. He was right, and she waited years to find out.

She lived a long time with a man of violent temper and loose habits, and did not spend those years waiting to be rescued from them. ¹ When Augustine was finally baptized she told him she had nothing left to want here, and she died at Ostia a few months later. ²